While it will likely go the way of Mini-Disc, it isn’t there yet – XBox 360 HD-DVD devices are selling for under 10 euros in Ireland, and with a reduction in price of existing HD DVD prices a decent movie collection can be accumulated for under £100 with the help of eBay.

Sure, you need to be using your HD-DVD player on your main TV, and of course there will be no more movies coming out on the format – but why waste such a good opportunity? 

At the end of the day, Blu-Ray won’t be here forever either…

However with the issue of Blu-Ray’s reliability with PCs still at large, don’t expect Blu-Ray to become de facto; don’t even expect this particular war to be hugely significant.

The Gadget Monkey tells me that this is just a blip – that the high definition optical disc format war is in fact just a phoney war, a standard to run parallel to standard DVD for only a few years to come.

Such is the slow take-up of High Def television and broadcast across Europe and the USA, despite the Sony propaganda, that the winner of the high def optical disc format war was never going to be winning anything more than a bit of money that was lost out on when DVD became the prevailing format.

Flash Ram is mere months away from being a viable alternative, is smaller, lighter and more versatile. A lot of money has been spent developing 5 inch discs in a world where portable media players continue to sell well with screens that are – at best – 5 inch.

So don’t get too attached to that Blu-Ray player.